Ten years ago today, Google released the 2nd-generation Nexus 7, just days after a surprise announcement. Back then, Android tablets still felt fresh and exciting. It seemed like anything was possible, and things could only improve from there. Well, we know what happened next. But the depressing state of the tablet market to come was in no way the fault of the Nexus 7. In fact, this is still one of the best Android tablets ever made, and it’s worth looking back and showing it the honor and respect it deserves.
I loved mine, but sitting a year or two the flash memory had degraded to the point it was completely unusable, even just as a digital photo frame.
The small tablet market is still underserved today, I’m running an iPad mini, which is great, but it’s definitely a second-class citizen compared to the bigger iPads.
That was the first version, the article is about the 2nd gen device where the flash memory problem got fixed.
I had a second gen one, and it suffered less than the first, but definitely did suffer as it aged.
I remember getting both. The first gen was pretty sweet, had an interesting texture on the back. The second one came out in a 3G/4G model and was great. I’ve got it in a draw still, no idea what I could do with it nowadays.
Yes, definitely! I don’t have as much use for a tablet these days, which is an unfortunate thing. My phone is big enough to cover most use cases, and my iPad 2017 is too big to be used comfortably for most things - it’s not ergonomic to hold upright in most conditions, it’s slippery without a folio case (and cases are hard to find unless you get an official Apple one which is very expensive), typing on it is a pain because of how thin it is, and the only saving grace it has in terms of typing is the mini floating swipeable keyboard added to iPad OS in recent years.
I’d definitely love to run something like a Nexus 7 again! Perfect form factor for most things, including media consumption, reading books, and much much more!